Do you have suggestions for families who choose your kind of parenting, but are constantly surrounded by parents who parent another way?  It becomes, for parents, really hard to always justify what they are doing, you know, in a world that sometimes doesn’t support that view. It sometimes feels like you always hit road blocks along the way.

I do counseling by phone internationally and this is one of the most common questions.  A lot of parents who want to do it naturally, to unschool, to co-sleep and not expose them to candy, or media, or movies, find that the moment they mingle with other kids, there’s a lot of seduction in the other direction. I was in the same boat with my children.  Some of my clients have moved out of the city under this influence of mine.  When they live in the city, it’s really hard because the influences are in the neighborhood, and it’s city living.  In the country, it’s a little easier.  Especially if you are living on a few acres and the neighbor is not within walking distance for a five year old.  I really recommend to choose your own little group.  A child doesn’t really need more than one good friend.  It’s not like you need a whole community.  You need to get in touch with the parents, that one family that clicks.  And, if that means that you have to move, you move.  We have done that.  We’ve moved a few times because of our children, because of social and now because of educational reasons.  We’re just like families that move because the man has a new job somewhere; why not move because your child has a new job, so to speak?  You know, engagement, interest, friends.  So, I would do anything for my children, to make sure that their social environment is supported.  And, one way even in the city, that I recommend, is to take the initiative.  Some  parents tell you – oh come on, let them eat some candy, oh come on, let them watch one TV show, it’s not going to hurt them -- you know, kind of patronizing and trivializing the whole thing.  What I find is that those parents, when that parent calls me, it turns out deep inside that they would love to do the same thing.  They think, you know, it’s like you bring your child and you succumb, and you let your child have a little candy because you don’t want to offend the other parent.  Or, you’re at their house and you watch some cartoons and say – okay, I won’t raise my voice, I won’t make waves.  Or, a group of homeschoolers even get together in the park, outdoors, are wonderful but the parents bring some, you know, games, technical kind of games, like the GameBoy, or some other nonsense, or candy or whatever… and you don’t say anything because of the pressure -- I don’t want to look bad; I don’t want to lose all my friends; I don’t want them to identify my child as a freak and not treat them equally.  So, we kind of fall for it.  And, I say – don’t fall for it.  Because the other parent may be falling for it too, thinking that you’re putting on the pressure.  They don’t know.  Everybody is just like in the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes.  Everybody thinks that everybody else thinks that the king is dressed.  So, everybody is not saying anything.  But, it’s very likely that if you said to a few people of the group that you think, or that you sense… and sometimes you can’t even sense it… that may really appreciate knowing more about this food or this game.  And, they want to do better, but they don’t dare because of you!  Because you’re not daring, they think you’re endorsing it.  So, I encourage people to tell the truth.  I encourage people to put flyers in the library and the health food store saying – we’re looking to connect with like parents, similar to us that would like to raise our kids like this … one person put a flyer that said – we’re looking for families unplugged.  Then they had a list.  Unplugged from TV, unplugged from computer, unplugged from candy, unplugged from cooked food… I mean, I don’t remember everything what they put in there, but they put their list and they got together.  They only found one other family in the end.  But that family and them became like twin families.  That’s all they needed.  So, put yourself out there.  Announce… instead of being shy about it… announce.  You may find that two other mothers are coming to you in the end and saying – you know what, me too.  I just didn’t dare because I thought everybody wants this.

And also, bring some articles.  Printed material about how bad sugar is, even in moderation.  It’s toxic.  Why toxicify our little children in moderation.  What’s the point?

It’s interesting because I live in a very forgiving community and open to different ideas.  And, even in a community like mine  you run into those kinds of… I don’t want to say ‘fights’ or kind of ‘conflicts’, and I find that my daughter  gets conflicting messages.  She is 3 ½ and she’s already fighting it.   We are thinking of un schooling and are continuously questioning main stream family practices.  She’s like – I want to go to school, I want to go on the school bus, I want new school supplies and all this stuff.  I appreciate that suggestion of always confronting those questions from parents when you’re out there because it will validate in my daughter our belief system. It will let her know that it’s okay to stand up for who you are and even if you’re different.  You make a really good point.

And, that will spread the word.  That’s will bring more parents into this.  But then, you find a few parents… make sure your daughter, for example, has friends that are planning to unschool.  Otherwise, she’ll want to go to school.  ‘Cause she’ll want to fit in.

Yeah.

Seriously.  And, I’ve seen parents move because of that.  It’s like let’s move next to these people who are going to unschool so that our child can have friends and other people who are going to unschool and get excited about that.  You know, I told my children from the beginning, shamelessly, I brain washed against school.  I wanted to make sure that they don’t want to do it.

So your children did not go to school?

Never.  Never crossed the threshold of a school other than to go and get the certification to go to college.

Did you follow curriculum or did you mostly un school?

No, unschooling.  But, unschooling in a nurturing environment; In a stimulating environment.  My children say to me that it’s not fair to say that we were unschooled, they think we need something better.  They meet a lot of unschoolers these days that they say are just, what they call kind of empty.  They haven’t been exposed or enriched in any way.  They were just sitting and watching TV and eating marshmallows.  Radical unschooling.  I don’t think that’s necessary.  I think it’s all right.  There’s an article of mine coming… I think it’s the one coming up.  Yes, it’s a very long conversation article coming in Natural Child Magazine.  In that, I talk about that particular aspect of unschooling.  Unschooling doesn’t have to be neglect.  And, it doesn’t have to be letting the children be influenced by the industry and making consumers out of them.  It doesn’t mean if you don’t control them, you just endorse that the industry controls them.  It’s not necessarily to do that.  And, it’s not necessary to raise them with no education at all.  But, you can do the education in a way that is not imposing.  My middle son just wrote for his application to the university – I was raised free to do as I wished, I could always do whatever I wanted.  He asked me to look through his essay that he wrote in his application and I was like – delighted to see his memories of his childhood and what he saw because yeah, they were free to do whatever they wanted and yet we created an environment that was intellectually and culturally stimulating.  So, that’s a part of their life, and it wasn’t license, it was freedom.  Not license.  It’s not like they could do whatever they want.  And, go eat junk food and go watch TV or go to the movies every afternoon.  They couldn’t do that.  Not because we forbade it, but because we created an environment that was not appreciative of that.  And, on the other hand, we created an environment that they loved, that was very cultured; like going to concerts, going to the science museum; like being interested in politics, philosophy, spirituality, nature.  So, it was part of our life.  We went for night walks in the dark to experience nature with no flash lights.  That’s one thing that is so safe living on an island -- that you can go out at midnight and walk in the forest.  So, we stimulated thinking.  We stimulated the arts a lot.  You know, classical music, art, theater, dance, all of that, we constantly exposed.  So, we weren’t passive, it’s just that we were not imposing which direction the child was actually diving deeper into.  That was their business.

Personally, the idea of  schooling at home, the philosophy and the reasons are all set  for our family, but it would be me taking on that responsibility of being with the children just because my husband has a job that he’s fulfilled in and that he loves.  So, it would be me.  But, the idea of spending day in and day out with my children all the time seems like a very daunting task.  You know, I’m doing it now, but I do it with the thought that it’s going to end at one point.  So, that’s the only thing that’s kind of holding me back and I’m just wondering if you have any suggestions about that.  It’s not that I want to work full time.  I don’t want to have a full time job.  But, I do like to be out there by myself doing things, just for me.

Yes.  And, I find that when the children are a little older, that happens naturally and the children become involved.  They’re for 2 hours in a rehearsal somewhere, or in some community garden that they all work together and you can go do your own thing.  And then it grows from there.  Then there’s friends that you can drop them off at.

Yeah, I just wanted to know your thoughts to try to motivate me to continue.  I think you have good points that the children are going to become older and that they…

They will be getting older and then it will gradually phase off.  But, if you have a hard time spending a lot of time with children, I would say take some phone sessions with me and I can help you be more happy with it, with the time that you do spend with them by investigating the thoughts inside of you that kind of get in the way and try to pull you to go do something by yourself.  Because raising children is the best thing that you can do for yourself.  You know, that’s why you gave birth to them.  You want to be with them, you want to enjoy it and it goes by so fast. But, at the same time, it does ease up.  Naturally.  It’s not the same.  When they’re really young, it’s constant.  They want food, you have to change diapers, you have to do this, you have to nurse, this one fell, this one crying, and it’s endless and constant.  And, also your children are very close in age together, which I don’t recommend in nuclear families.  If you want to have more children, give it some space so that you don’t have two together, since you don’t have the whole tribe to help you and to help them feel connections with other people.  So, it will be easier though with time.  And, also when children are free, they play by themselves eventually, you know, when they have a friend or they have each other when the baby is old enough. I found that I could write my book some days, not every day, but I could do some writing, some article, some piano playing that I used to do while my children were playing by themselves outside.  Or, inside in a rainy winter day, either way.  So, it does become easier.  Also  home schooling doesn’t mean that you can’t sometimes hire somebody to give you a break.  So, you could  hire an art teacher if they’re into art, or some adult to play with them for awhile.  My children did music and theater, so I would drop my son off for the rehearsal.  Or, I’d bring home some art with them so then that gives me a break.

This question of the nuclear family, it’s a modern question.  We did our best to separate ourselves from each other.  You know, I grew up in a country where most people lived in apartments and not in houses.  So, when I came to this country, I thought that life here was very lonely.  And, that raising children each in their own house, separate from the others, when you can’t just say to the neighbor – would you listen to my child, I have to go somewhere… when I was a child, my mother could just go somewhere and basically knock on the door of the neighbor and say – I’m leaving the kids, please pay attention, and leave.  It was that simple.  And, it was a one bedroom apartment, each apartment.  And, it was right there.  She knew.  And, she would tell me… if you have any problem, bang on the wall and Rachel will come.  I mean, literally, we could bang on the wall and their living room was on the other side of our bedroom.  So, it’s like… okay, bang on the wall, Rachel knows you’re by yourself and she’ll come if you need something or go knock on her door and go play with her children.  So, that, you know, when you grow up like that, life is a lot easier and the kids just play outside.  I like the movement of creating co-housing communities, like, in Washington State, where we have two green communities in Port Townsend -- a lot of them are homeschoolers and  have organic gardens in the middle and draw milk and have just a lot of good things in common.  I think that’s going to keep growing.  I always see advertisements from somebody -- for example, Romeo Nagel, who wrote Healing Our Children and Cure for Tooth Decay, just found a piece of land in Northern California that he wanted to share and create a community of living naturally with children.  So, that keeps happening and I hope more and more of that will happen and create a solution for people to have more tribal life because this nuclear family is part of why it’s difficult.  Because being alone with two young children is exhausting, and not fulfilling for the adult that you are in some ways.  Hiring a teenager to play with them is one of my suggestions.

No matter whether you are in nature or not in nature, growing up this way or that way, or even with school or without school; the child knows that they are worthy and the parents love them if relationships start with that responsiveness all the way from babyhood, and with knowing the child is right, and with a commitment to find why they need to do what they do.  Even when they do something that you have to stop them from doing, you still want to find  out why is she/he doing that?  What do I need to do to help them so that they wouldn’t have the drive to do it?  If a child hits their brother, they have a reason.  We need to find what is it that’s hurting them.  Why have they become out of control like that and then take care of it.  Not to punish the child.  Not to hurt them or scold them, but rather it’s our duty to find  out why. They have a reason.  Even stop them.  I’m not saying – ‘he’s right’ means go ahead and let them hurt someone or hurt themselves.  Of course you intervene.  Of course you help.  But, you come to help, not to scold or punish.  Your duty is to find the reason, the cause, the source, of why a child needs to do something.  So, you take that need away by meeting the actual needs that are not met.  By finding that compassionate connection.  And, that takes time and that takes being close to each other and responding naturally to the child.  Not manipulating them, but responding to them.  That’s what my book is about, that’s what my CDs cover and everything I do in my counseling, my speaking and my work.

It was a pleasure to share with you the work of Naomi Aldort.  If you have not read Part I of this interview please click on the provided link:  Part 1.

Heidi Ahrens

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